One America News Network is treating former President Donald Trump’s call for an immediate redo of the 2020 election not only as plausible, but as deserved.

On the morning of August 29, former president Donald Trump posted to Truth Social that the only “REMEDY” for “massive FRAUD & ELECTION INTERFERENCE” in 2020 was either to “declare [Trump] the rightful winner” or “declare the 2020 Election irreparably compromised and have a new Election, immediately!” 

There is no mechanism in U.S. law for redoing a presidential election, but despite the utter nonsense of Trump’s anguished posting, on OAN the “news” was featured in several news hours, as anchor after anchor read Trump’s post as though the 2020 election was actually stolen from him. Often, the “reports” on Trump’s post were paired with a segment discussing Hunter Biden’s laptop trending on social media, along with a promotion for a Breitbart movie about Hunter Biden.

The 2020 election was not stolen from Trump, but OAN and other right-wing outlets still enamored with the twice-impeached former president are just as devoted to the interminable conspiracy theory as Trump himself. 

On August 29, after discussing the federal affidavit for the search of Mar-a-Lago, In Focus host Addison Smith briefly questioned if Trump’s post had made “too much of an ask.” Smith’s guest, Judicial Watch founder Larry Klayman, responded that “the American people need to unite behind him, and he needs to do more than talk. … He needs to be bold, and the American people need to do it.”

Klayman continued, “Going back to January 6, he should have declared new elections then. He should have declared a state of emergency and said, ‘Look, this thing’s corrupt, let's do it the right way, let's have the American people vote again, and let’s see who won.’” Klayman concluded his remarks by noting that he firmly believes, as does OAN, that “this was a fraudulent election, and we have an illegitimate president.”

Smith ended the interview with vague allusions to “some factually phony, fraudulent voting” that he claimed happened in Pennsylvania and “other states.” Smith provided no evidence of these claims, but to an OAN audience, he doesn’t need to: If Trump said it, and if OAN said it, then it must be true.